Vinicio Capossela
Marinai, Profeti e Balene

What can I say, what to think of an artist, a singer-songwriter who at the height of success decides to produce such a double album? It can certainly be said that popularity at all costs is not essential to him, and thus he can also in his own way consider himself a PROPHET, the title of the same, hoping this album is another step towards a new way of understanding and listening to music and literature in unison. Quoting all 19 tracks would be a suicide, not so much for this writer, but thinking of the reader, it would probably give rise to another Moby Dick, so I refrain, rather I would like to focus on the first significant impressions I had when listening to some of the tracks present on the album.

"JOB" A biblical track, but moreover more than current. Who among us has never felt abandoned and tested by God, who has not lost themselves in anguish and pain invoking His name without receiving any response to soothe the wounds and fever of body and soul; who has never doubted divine justice, who among us has never been in their own way a Job, if not in righteousness certainly in doubt, and this is the strength of this track that inevitably unites everyone... this is the masterpiece of the album more than the literary citations of various Melville, Céline, Conrad, Homer, etc. To be listened to attentively in every single note and word.

"POLPO D'AMOR" Surely one of the more accessible tracks of the first album, a very early Capossela-like piece, musically reminiscent of "Tanco del murrazzo", so an excellent piece, recorded with Calexico and then stripped to the bone in this version.

"IL GRANDE LEVIATANO" This is the opening piece that is somewhat a summary of what follows in the course of the album, also an epic track in my opinion, it starts with choirs and then slowly builds up until the finale where from the sea the tones rise and soar to the sky. Very beautiful from the first listen, where it drags and leads well to the central theme of the album with its dark and joyful atmospheres that interchangeably accompany the course of the whole work.

"L'OCEANO OILALÀ" A track that immediately hits, recommended to be listened to and sung in the car with windows down, to fully enjoy the incredulous faces of passing people, the pirate chorus at the end is priceless, even if it is impossible to deny it owes much to "Volta la carta" by De André.

Also noteworthy are "Lord Jim" "Billy Bud" and especially "Aedo".

What else can I say? It's a double album full of citations, myths, whales, cyclops, and sirens, a full and dense work, some of the tracks to be fully appreciated need to be accompanied by the knowledge and reading of the sources from which they are taken, perhaps difficult for many at first approach but if eventually understood it is a work of a bottomless abyss of beauty and musical/literary knowledge.